February 2012 - Guadeloupe to Antigua - Page 3

13 February 2012   Falmouth Harbour, Antigua
First thing in the morning, I dropped Andy, Jake and Tyler off at the dive centre.  Glenys and Gill then went off to a couple of supermarkets and bought provisions for the next five days because we’ll be in the middle of nowhere.

Andy brought a hard disk drive out with him that contains over 40 DVD films, so I spent the morning setting up my media player and copying 300 GB of films from the hard disk drive. Not that we ever bother to watch a film, but it’s nice to know that we've now got over 400 movies that we could watch if we want to.

The scuba divers returned at midday and we had a little bit of excitement when the dive boat came to drop them off on Alba.  When they were about 10 metres from us, the driver discovered that he couldn't put his boat into reverse.  There was some frantic shouting, but Glenys and a guy on the dive boat managed to fend them off, preventing a nasty crunch.  They anchored while they sorted out the problem and I picked our visitors up in the dinghy.

Andy, Jake and Tyler returning from a dive

They had a good time and Tyler completed her Open Water certification so she was pleased. Everyone chilled out after the morning’s exertions and then we went out for happy hour and dinner at Trappas Bar which was very busy – I’m glad that I booked a table.

14 February 2012   Falmouth Harbour to Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
I dragged everyone out of bed at seven o'clock to get ready to go around to Deep Bay on the North West side of the island.  Then I looked at the weather forecast and found that we’re going to have a 3 metre swell coming in from NNW.  This will make Deep Bay very rolly and maybe untenable, so we changed plans and motored east along the south coast to Nonsuch Bay.  On the way, Andy spotted a whale, which surprisingly, was in only 10 metres of water.  We think that it was a Humpback whale.

We anchored close to the reef where the colour of the water is spectacular.  I was surprised that there are another fifteen yachts in this anchorage – I was hoping to be here in splendid isolation.  We all went snorkelling on the reef which surrounds the anchorage.  It was okay, but the fine white sand is suspended in the water making for poor visibility.  The reef looks to have a lot of storm damage and there aren’t many fish – I was disappointed.  

After lunch, Andy and I went through a very narrow cut to the outside of the reef to go snorkelling. Andy’s bought a second hand camera and strobe very similar to mine, so we had a little underwater photography competition. We were both rubbish – I won because Andy’s photos were marginally worse than mine.  I still haven’t got the hang of my new strobe and everything is over exposed.

Everyone chilled out for the rest of the afternoon.  It’s very noticeable that our guests have finally relaxed into life afloat and are now content to sit & read or just sit & stare.  When they first came onto the boat they were hyper-active coming from the fast pace of life in the UK.  It’s a blessed relief that they've calmed down.  

15 February 2012   Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
We had chilled morning.  I managed to get an Internet connection, so I took the opportunity to send a letter to the HM Revenue and Customs following an enquiry that they’re doing into my 2009/10 tax return.  There’s no escape from the tax-man even anchored on the edge of a reef in a tropical paradise.

View towards Africa, Nonsuch Bay, Antigua

I then took Andy and Gill out to the reef next to the Spithead Channel, which was better snorkelling than the two places that we tried yesterday.  After lunch, Andy took his family to the beach while Glenys and I chilled out and had a rest from the close proximity of people.

16 February 2012   Nonsuch Bay to Carlisle Bay, Antigua
We managed to get everyone up and fed by eight o'clock.  Andy had a go at navigating us to Carlisle Bay and did okay apart from having a tendency to go too close to the rocky coast line.  The wind was very light, so we had to motor all the way.  Andy managed to catch a small tuna as we passed English Harbour, which was a welcome relief from the rather boring trip.

We poked our noses into Carlisle Bay and found that it was protected from the swell, and then continued out to Cades Reef for lunch.  It's two parallel reefs with a deeper area between where it's possible to anchor in settled conditions.  I was hoping to be able to find a passage through the inner reef, but the sun went behind a huge bank of clouds and without good light, we couldn’t see the location of the coral and shallows, so we had to go the long way around.  Just as we were anchoring, the sun decided to come out – typical...

After a lunch of pan-fried tuna, we spent an hour snorkelling.  I’m still playing with my underwater camera and had very disappointing results with every photograph being ruined by “backscatter” where the flash gun illuminates the particles in the water – it’s very frustrating.

As we motored back to Carlisle Bay, I spotted a dive boat anchored on the North side of Cades reef, so I made a note of the GPS coordinates.  Carlisle Bay is a lovely anchorage with a long white beach and an exclusive hotel.

17 February 2012   Carlisle Bay to Jolly Harbour, Antigua
After breakfast, we headed back to where we saw the dive boat yesterday and managed to find a sandy area with 5 metres depth.  Andy and Tyler went for a dive then, after I refilled the tanks, Jake and I did the same dive.  

Tyler and Andy diving on Cades Reef, Antigua

The dive was only 12 metres deep, but there were lots of Southern Stingrays and we all spotted a Lionfish which is an invader from the Indian Ocean.  These are beautiful fish, but voracious hunters that are killing many reef fish and unfortunately have no natural predators in the Caribbean.  We’re supposed to kill them on sight or report them, but they have very poisonous spines and I didn’t have anything to kill it with.  I’ll have to report it to the Fisheries Agency.

After lunch, everyone chilled out while I refilled the dive tanks and then we motored around to Jolly Harbour, anchoring outside the marina harbour.  We dinghied into the marina for happy hour and then went to an Italian restaurant, where we had a great pizza.

18 February 2012   Jolly Harbour to Deep Bay , Antigua
Glenys and Gill shot off in the dinghy to the big supermarket in the marina.  We've been getting through a prodigious amount of beer, coke and other soft drinks as well as finishing off most of our fresh food. 

We had a good sail around to Deep Bay and managed to tack into the mouth of the bay.  After lunch, we went snorkelling on the wreck, but again the visibility was very poor.  Everyone else soon became bored and swam back to Alba leaving me alone playing with my camera and strobe.  I’m starting to get the hang of it now and I concentrated on taking close-up pictures to get the settings correct and try to minimise the backscatter.  My subjects were boring bits of coral, but it was good practise.

Andy and family went to the beach and chilled out for an hour, while we ran the watermaker – we’ve had to run it for an hour a day, which means that we’re using 45 gallons every day – a lot more than we normally use.  We joined them on the beach and walked up to the small fort on the headland, where we rewarded ourselves with a nice cold beer while watching the sun go down.  Deep Bay is a lovely anchorage.

Deep Bay, Antigua

19 February 2012   Deep Bay to Great Bird Island, Antigua
We lounged around until ten o'clock waiting for the sun to get higher in the sky, so that we could have better light to navigate through the reefs on the north east corner of the island.

We motor-sailed up the west coast and then headed east into Boon Channel, which goes between an outer reef and a shallow, rocky coast line. After going through the inner channel past Prickly Pear Island, we headed past Maiden Island and across an area of shoals to Great Bird Island.  It’s very similar to Nonsuch Bay, but with a more islands.  

Andy, Gill and I went snorkelling to the north of Great Bird Island which had clear water, but not many fish.  We then went to the beach for a walk.  There were a surprising number of small power boats on the two beaches on the island – not the isolated, idyllic paradise that we expected.  Perhaps it’s just busy because it’s a Sunday.  The walk on the island is pleasant, following a 50 foot high cliff with Frigate Birds and Tropic Birds flying along in the updraft.

In the evening, I was surprised by the number of lights from the mainland – it’s certainly a more populated area than Nonsuch Bay.

20 February 2012   Great Bird Island to Davis Bay, Antigua
The others went for a walk on Great Bird Island while I ran the water maker and tidied up.  When they arrived back, a nasty looking bank of cloud came over and it rained, so we waited until eleven o'clock for it to clear enough to navigate through the shallow waters to Parnham Harbour.  I’m glad we waited because there was some pretty shallow water - dropping down to 2.5 metres in some places.

The anchorage in Parnham Harbour is surrounded by mangroves.  We anchored off a wrecked ship in a depth of three metres.  It’s not a very attractive anchorage because there's a large desalination plant making a lot of noise and a rough looking dock with a few boats which look like they’re slowly rotting away. 

Glenys cooling down, Davis Bay, Antigua

After lunch, we went ashore to have a look around Parnham which used to be the second most important  town in Antigua - apparently the Governor used to have his residence here.  Parnham’s glory days have long gone and now it’s a sleepy little place with a busy fishing dock, but little else.  I bought some fish from the fishing dock and we found a couple of small grocery stores where we managed to buy some bread and more soft drinks.  We found a large church which looked derelict with broken windows, but on closer investigation was very nice inside with an impressive wooden framed roof.  On the way back to the boat, we poked our heads into the mangroves and dinghied down a small inlet.  Not much to see apart from a few Herons and some mangrove oysters.

We motored over to Davis Bay and anchored off the beach outside the small port.  It’s a lovely little bay with a white sand beach and palm trees.  Andy and family went to the beach while Glenys and I tidied up and worried about where we were going to take them next.  It’s becoming harder and harder to come up with new things for them to do – I can’t find anywhere else to take them diving and the snorkelling is not very good anywhere that we’ve found.